


I Know You

by JadeLupine



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: 1700s, 1920s, 1940s, 2013, 300s, AU, Anal Sex, Angst, Art, Blowjobs, Historical AU, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Love, M/M, Oral Sex, Reincarnation, Romance, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-10 14:24:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1160727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JadeLupine/pseuds/JadeLupine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They met in the hazy summer of  348 AD, and parted in the icy winter of 2013.<br/>A love story in reincarnation, diamond-sharp memories, and instinct. <br/><i>“He grabs Hannibal’s hand so hard it hurts, laces his fingers into his own, and Will can feel his pulse as they stand in the abandoned concentration camp warehouse, the pulse is a constant hum and hurt, and Will feels whole, for once, he feels whole. “</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	I Know You

**Author's Note:**

> all sector titles are based on lyrics from Lana Del Rey songs   
> happy reading!!!

**i.** **you can be my full time daddy, white and gold**

 

_1923, New York_

“Wait.” Will hissed to Beverly as she dragged him through the crowd of people pressing against each other and smelling of sweet wine. “You didn’t even tell me whose party this was, Bev.”

Will lost count of how many times he smiled and nodded to dark eyed, stiff-smiling strangers, all of them looking forward to something that Will had no idea of. The house they were in was tastefully furnished, it almost looked like a work of art, with the ancient paintings and the fine china, and Will would have admired the eye of the owner, only had he known who it was. The sun was setting outside and the night dawned slowly as the party swung forward, and Will loosened his necktie, and unbuttoned his jacket, aware that many other guests were doing the same, the women combating the heat by swinging wildly in their light flapper dresses.

“And that was how I finished my degree, after great amounts of derision.” The smarmy, oiled man with a beard and dewdrop eyes finished, stretching out his fingers and smiling expectantly at Will.

“I see.” Will tried. “That’s very brave of you, Doctor Chilton. Would you care to tell me who this party was thrown by? Only that---“

“Boy, you don’t know who gave this party?” Chilton’s laugh was loud and brash, like the laughter of most people who knew something the other did not. “Isn’t it obvious? Fine dining, the best food in the entire city, all these thousand dollar art exhibits, drinking till midnight, who else, Mr. Graham. It’s Hannibal Lecter.”

“Who?” Will asked, unfamiliar.

“Him, over there.” Chilton pointed, and slipped away, bored with Will’s ignorance of matters. Will turned his eyes to the man Chilton had pointed to, staring at the fine bones of his face and the infinite steadiness of his hands as he spoke to a woman, and something hummed in Will, like the refrain of a very old tune, and he stands gormlessly, wondering at the glints of gold on his slicked-back, axle-greased hair, and the way his glance fell soft on Will.

His mouth went dry as Hannibal Lecter walked toward him, smiling.

 

**ii.** **in the land of gods and monsters, i was an angel**

_348 A.D, Northern England_

They would kill him if they found out that he was speaking to the Viking, let alone sleeping with him, Will thinks desperately as he strides through the mud of the village to the forests beyond. Tensions had risen beyond control beyond the Saxons and the Vikings, both the races claiming England as their own. Will’s father, the chief of the Saxon village, had warned him against speaking, or even looking at any of the Viking men that lodged barbarically in the forests. The pink-cheeked, flaxen haired Angles and Saxons did not mix with the high boned, wild-eyed, barbaric Vikings, it was a rule that was spoken and enforced and pushed into Will’s mind.

“Hallo.” A flash of a white smile and a flick to the forehead makes Will grin, and turn to his left, where Hannibal stood with his golden hair and his dazzling, dirty face. _Hallo_ seemed to be one of the few English words he knew, this tall, large man with the boned helmet and the eyes that pooled into his skull. Will wants to walk straight into those eyes of the silent Viking, but instead, he is taken into the muscular, brown arms, and he is simply held.

“Will.” The Viking says, and his heated breath tickles the smaller man’s ear in an almost delightful way.

“Let us run away, Hannibal. Your tribe will kill you if they know, my village will banish me when they know. We will have to run.” Will says, his voice quick and clear, urgent. Hannibal does not respond, only gathers Will up tighter, almost crushing him until Will can feel the pulse at Hannibal’s throat beating in time with his own, it seems to thrum _life, you’re alive, alive, alive_.

Hannibal presses his hand to Will’s and they stand in the middle of the forest, connecting hands. Hannibal’s hand seemed to engulf Will’s, it was large, the fingers swollen and rough, and the palm scarred. Such different hands, the warrior’s and the farm-boy’s. They stood there for minutes upon minutes, until the memory lodges itself in their brains.

“Will.” The  Viking says at last, pressing his lips to Will’s highbrow. “If…if it…find.”

“Then what happens?” Will asks, looking at Hannibal for a clue, maybe a hint that they could run to the South, find the Romans, maybe, but Hannibal’s face was it’s own inexorable self.

“Must kill Will.”

 

**iii.** **my old man is a bad man but I cant deny the way he holds my hand**

_1942, Auschwitz, Poland_

Will knows fear, and he knows hunger, and he knows death. The three words beat in his head, tearing his brains inside his skull, hunger, fear, death, and he knows all three will come to him, he knows in which order. Being a homosexual in Germany was a terrible, unforgivable crime, even if you worshipped Jesus at the altar, and even if your eyes were as blue as the Aryan sky. Will cannot remember anything except the thought of food and the touch of his mother, and he thinks of them, when the door creaks open, and a blonde-brown (with dangerously brown eyes) head pops into his small shelter and the door quickly slams shut.

There are no words as Hannibal Lecter, top-dog Nazi guard of the camp, strides toward him and presses his own lips to Will’s mouth. He grabs Hannibal’s hand so hard it hurts, laces his fingers into his own, and Will can feel his pulse as they stand in the abandoned concentration camp warehouse, the pulse is a constant hum and hurt, and Will feels whole, for once, he feels whole. He had been doing this to Will for months, almost even a year, and he did not mind, he did not mind at all because Hannibal’s mouth, with it’s wry-fond twist, tasted like flesh and sweet and home. They both came from Stuttgart, Will recalled Hannibal telling him once, in the middle of fervent kissing. Too bad one became a stinking homosexual in a camp, ad the other became every mother’s dream son.

Hannibal yanked Will’s pants down, in the hush-dark, and Will is almost dizzy with the taste of the man, his erection stands up immediately, and Hannibal fondles it with his tongue, his teeth scraping along his shaft, licking and then, the guard takes Will entirely into his mouth, choking slightly as the back of his throat is teased, and Will arches his back, and he wonders----how could someone so broken like him feel such exquisite pleasure? Hannibal had undone his own pants, and was pumping his own cock in his hand as Will’s twitched in his mouth, and Will feels like a tumble of facts and falsifications, he has forgotten everything except the feeling of Hannibal’s tongue now opening him up from behind, and the feeling of his fingers sliding within him, softly, he is dizzy, and Hannibal is inside him, and he remembers nothing now, except the warmth of the Nazi’s breath on his neck.

When he is done, Hannibal’s seed is lodged within Will as he pulls out, and it covers the inside of his thighs, a sickly-warm feeling, and Will’s own come is spattered across the dry-dirt, they are both sweating, and panting softly, breaths weaving themselves into tighter patterns. When Will finally turns to look at Hannibal’s face, he does not notice it at first, but he looks almost _sad_ , this man who had ruthlessly kicked a woman to death the other day. He looked almost sad, and Will raised his pants, and stood up along with the guard, until they faced each other. Hannibal took Will’s face in his hands, for only a moment, they did not usually touch after sex, but today, he holds Will’s face, and rests his forehead against his.

“Come, Will.” He says in a heavy, catalogued voice. “You must take a shower.”

 

**iv.** **it’s you, it’s you, it’s all for you, everything I do**

_1764, Paris_

“I honestly do not feel like getting a portrait painted, Mama.” Will rolled his eyes, and adjusted his collar as his mother glared at him.

“William, as the highest-ranking English family in France, we have a duty. The elderly woman said primly. “And you, as the eldest son, must have a portrait painted every decade, to show the changes. You are twenty three years old, and acting like a child, William.”

“There’s no use. I’m just going to move, or ruin the painting.” Will muttered, as his mother went out of his room as the doorknocker rang out, signaling the arrival of the painter. Will hated being born into aristocracy, if he had to be honest.  He would rather eat bread and carrots and cheese like the rest of the populace, instead of being force-fed rabbit, and snails, and of course, Mama’s favourite veal. He leaned back in his chair and stretched out his legs.

“You must sit in proper posture.” The artist entered with an easel and canvas, and began setting them up in front of Will. He had cheekbones that stretched up to his deep-set eyes, and long, light hair gathered loosely into a ponytail. He seemed to do everything briskly, as he set up his paints and charcoal, and then took to glaring at Will, who stared back defiantly.

“Proper posture, Mr. Graham.” The painter said again, daubing at a brush. “Back straight, chin high, and eyes forward.”

“Are you even French?” Will raised his eyebrows at the painter’s accent.

“No. I am Hannibal Lecter, from Dänmark.” The man straightened his canvas, and then walked toward Will, frowning. He put his hands on Will’s shoulders and pushed back, tipped up Will’s shaven chin and tilted his head. “Stay.”

He painted for two hours, at the end of which, Will felt his eyes closing slightly, and made a slight, impatient noise.

“Take off that collar.” The painter said.

“No.”

But Hannibal comes forward, and does so, and Will would have protested but his hand is light in Will’s hair, and his thumb smoothed over the knot where his spine begins. Will is amused, slightly, and fond.

The next day, Hannibal asks him to remove his coat, and he waits till the man comes forward, and removes it for him.

Two days later, when he is asked to remove his shirt, he would have,  but he wanted to feel the rough fingers of the foreign painter on his bare chest, so he waits till those are removed too. He knows that his is not the typical way to pose for portraits, he has posed for hundreds, but maybe this painter is different, and he is surprised that he likes it.

A day later, he is asked to remove his breeches, and as he steps out of them completely nude, his head high and his nose straight, and Hannibal stares at him with a ferocious desperation, and he paints quicker and quicker, the strokes broad and slashing, his eyes burning fire. Will stands still, wondering if the painter even remembered the shape and form of his clothes to paint them without looking.

On the seventh day, they make love on the couch, gratified and half blind in the frenzy.

On the eighth day, they are both fully clothed, and the guilt on Hannibal’s face cuts when Will looked at him. So he did not look.

“I am sorry madam. I cannot paint your son, it is…I am not talented enough.” He admits with bowed head, and lowered eyes.

“I will not pay you.” Will’s mother declared, and swept out of the room.

“Let me see.” Will speaks softly for once, to Hannibal, who was packing up his paints and canvas quietly. Will’s heartbeat is so loud in his ears that he fears he may break with it, and he moves closer to the painter.

“I cannot.” Hannibal says. “It is not appropriate.”

“Show me.”

And so he did.

The composition of the painting was in blues and reds and yellows, lights and score and colours, and Will does not know how the painter had managed to paint his lips so full and red, how his hair curled cherubically, and how his eyes had the glint it never had. But he was nude, from his flaxen, boyish chest, to the arousal at his groin, the painting was proud and naked and strong. Hands twined around his chest, brown and wiry and thick hands, that of the painter himself, and legs wrapped around Will’s own. The head of the other man was not visible, but a flash of gold behind Will’s head revealed his identity, and all of a sudden, Will feels a lump in his throat. He seemed ethereal, almost golden, as if an angel, and Will wants to touch the painting, to touch the perfectness Hannibal claimed was him, but he is afraid.

“This is not me.” He whispers.

“It is you.” Hannibal says, as he takes the painting under his arm, and exits the house. “It is you, William Graham.”

**v.** **i know you, i walked with you once upon a dream**

_2013, Baltimore_

“I don’t know which is worse. Believing that I did this, or believing that you did this to me.”

The winter howled outside, screaming and weeping at the walls of the prison, and the hatred in Will’s voice hisses in Hannibal’s ears, the rustle of his uniform, the hush of the other inmates, and the roar of silence. Hannibal pressed his hand against the bars, where Will’s hand rested, pale, sickly and veined. He wants to tell the man _you are so perfect if only you embrace your dark_ but he did not speak, and instead, fitted his hand against Will’s open palm,  through the bars of the prison cell. Will’s face is white and sharp like iron  in the fire, and so is Hannibal’s as they both stare at their connected (but not quite), hands. Hannibal’s hand was larger, and rougher than Will’s pale appendage, and somehow, they seemed to fit together, it connects like someone else’s pain.

There is a flash of memory, but it dissipates.

“You did this. You did this to me, and you stand there, as if we were never friends.” Will snarls again, although he does not remove his hand.

“We were never friends, Will.” Hannibal closes his eyes, and something flashes by him, too fast for him to catch it, like the strain of an old memory or the lilt of a forgotten tune. If he had caught the fleeting memory, it would have screamed _no you were never friends, you were flappers, you were secret lovers, you were prisoner and guard, you were aristocrat and servant, no never friends._ But Hannibal was too slow to catch the thought. And so, he removes his hand from the icy bars, and walks away, tries not to remember.

Behind him, Will lets out a harshly desperate whisper.

“I _know_ you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this is the first non-Arthurian reincarnations fic I've done, inspired by Lana Del Rey, of course. I would really, honestly appreciate it if you all left your reviews and comments, and will be forever grateful.


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